Noah was stunned. “Blind? As in, you can’t seeanything?”
“Yeah. A real pain-in-the-asphalt for an ER doc.”
He loved how she reworded bad language to keep it PG. She must have learned that from working in a very public setting.
“I’m sorry. That’s got to be—disturbing!”
“You got that right.”
“Do you think it could be temporary?”
“I hope so.”
“Is there anything I can do? You know, as a friend. Can I shop for you or anything?”
“That’s sweet, but the housekeeper does the shopping.”
“Oh.” What could he say? Her father obviously didn’t like him, so a visit was out. “Can I call you once in a while? Just so you can talk to someone, if you need to?”
She hesitated but at last relented. “Sure. Not too often though. I had a heck of a time finding my phone before it went to voicemail, and I bumped my shin in the process.”
“Ouch. That’s why you were breathing funny.”
“Yeah, I was trying not to yell or curse under my breath.”
He chuckled. “You can curse to me anytime.”
“Well, I don’t want to get into the habit. I may go back to work eventually.”
“I hope so.”
“You and me both.”
* * *
A few days later, Kizzy was going stir-crazy, just sitting around the house with nothing to do—or see. Her father was at work. She envied his power of invisibility. He rarely used it, but he felt it gave him enough of an advantage so he didn’t need to worry about being followed by whomever was after the book.
Her sister didn’t seem to mind staying home. Her fiancé liked it too. He said the house was cleaner. She could almost hear Ruth’s eyes roll.
She could clean the house too—if she could see it! At least her sister had found a case for her phone that had a wrist strap. She could keep it with her more easily that way. But she couldn’t call and bother Ruth again. They had just talked for an hour.
Nick Wolfensen had gone home to have lunch with his wife and daughter. He seemed to go back and forth in a jiffy. She’d heard he lived on Beacon Hill but couldn’t figure out how he got there and back to Brookline so fast. Maybe he had more than one paranormal secret?
Fortunately, someone picked that moment to call. “Hello?”
“Hi, Kizzy. It’s Noah. How are you?”
“Oh, you know. Blind. But in some ways, I see a lot more.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like what a good friend you are. Nobody from the hospital has called to see how I am.”
“Nobody?”
“Nope. Not a nurse. Not a secretary. Not a janitor. No one.”
“Jeez, that’s not right. You’d probably have thought to call them if one of your coworkers suddenly went blind.”
